


I Saw it On Your Keyboard

by thischarmingand (electricchicken)



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tumblr preservation project 2018, and a weird number of SPACED references, featuring Sam! Simon! Jody!, the one with the MMORPG meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 22:55:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16861618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricchicken/pseuds/thischarmingand
Summary: In which the heart wants what the heart wants, and Jack’s heart is less helpful than most. Also, armoured bears.(A long distance AU)





	I Saw it On Your Keyboard

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in October of 2012, according to Tumblr, but never posted it here during my ZR fandom heyday. As our fave blue hellsite starts to toddle a little more quickly towards its end, I'm finally porting it here fore safekeeping. It was always one of my favourites. 
> 
> (Roughly six months after writing this I met my future wife online through this fandom, though I didn't know it yet. It's funny how these things work. She's always been fond of this one too.)
> 
> Any typos below are vintage 2012 and I'm calling it historical preservation.

**OCTOBER**

The night elf comes bursting out of the tree line at full tilt, running on scrawny legs, its ill-fitting armour clanging against itself and spooking the shit out of the shadewolf that Jack’s knight defender has spent the last twenty minutes trying to lure into a snare. It flees in the opposite direction, tail leaving a shadowy gray smudge behind it as it disappears off the edge of the monitor and out of his life forever.

“Oi, fucker,” Jack shouts a little to loud into the headset, not even waiting for his request for a voice link to go through. Definitely too much Red Bull. The last three might’ve been a mistake. “You owe me 50 gold.”

“What?” American, of-fucking-course. This late at night it’s always Americans. “What are you doing out here? Where’s your guild?”

“Sleeping.” Sam and Simon had tapped out around 1 a.m. Something about classes and papers due. Even Jody, who he can usually count on to marathon Demons and Darkness with him until the small hours, had logged off early tonight, claiming an emergency early morning fill-in shift at the yarn shop. And — huh — the elf is flailing in front of him, as whoever he’s talking to bangs out protective and healing spells faster than the animation allows. “What’s up?”

“The shambling hordes are swarming New Canton,” the elf jerks to a stop, the last healing spell still glowing blue around him for a moment. “All Level 60 or higher, we need to get out of here now. Come with me if—”

He stops short, and groans, and Jack has to restrain himself from cackling into the mic. “If what?”

“If — if you want to live,” the elf finishes, miserably. “Shut up, they had a Terminator marathon in the quad last night. And we need to move, now. I’m serious.”

The elf starts walking away and, what the hell, it’s not like the shadewolf’s coming back. Jack pops open the inventory screen, trades his lures for his battle axe, and jogs off after — “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Eugene,” the elf doesn’t break a stride, but the guy in Jack’s ears sort of fumbles about for a moment. “I mean, the elf is Marr of house Darksomething-or-other. But, uh, I’m Eugene.”

“Ser William Gilbert Grace at your service,” Jack says, tapping a couple keys and watching as his paladin pauses for a low, sweeping bow. “Or Jack, when I’m at home.”

“Hey,” Eugene says, kind of awkward. He can picture the guy (well, sort of, in the sense that he can picture a guy-shaped blur) waving at his computer screen. He seems the type. “But we really need to get off this map. If we go north, we should be able to port into Abel Township. I think the monsters up there are only level 20.”

“And no match for two hard warriors,” Jack says, thumping his chest and, yeah, he definitely did not need that much caffeine. “Lead the way, my pointy eared brother in arms.”

“You’re not one of those guys who roleplays, are you?” Eugene says, suspiciously. “Because I am not doing elf voices.”

“Course not,” he lies through his teeth. “Though on that subject, Ser W.G. is seriously pissed you freaked out his quarry back there. Do you know how much those shadewolf pelts are going for right now if you’ve got at least plus-five on your armoury skills? These battle axes don’t just drop from monsters or anything.”

“I—” Eugene snorts, then starts snickering. “Fine, fine. Marr pledges to help you find a new wolf to kill and skin for profit. On the honour of his ancestors or whatever.”

“We have really got to work on your character motivation,” Jack says, just as a single shambling hoarder stumbles onto the path in front of them.

“Shut up,” Eugene’s elf whacks the creature across the skull with its staff and does a painfully minimal amount of damage. The thing keeps lurching forward, one big green-gray hand coming out and swiping him out of the way. The elf sags to one knee, shoulders heaving. “Shit, these things are strong.”

“We make it through this,” Jack says, pulling a potion out of inventory and tossing it his way before charging in, axe raised, “I am holding you to that wolf thing. On the honour of your ancestors. Or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Eugene agrees, as the elf’s hands glow red and a fire spell goes ripping towards their foe.

He finally gets to bed at about 8 a.m. Totally worth it.

—

“…and then he says, ‘so you can put that on the record,’” Eugene says with a barely-suppressed snicker, as W.G. slams his axe down onto the shadewolf for a final time, and it expires with a yip.

“That’s absolutely the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard,” Jack groans, and clicks on the wolf’s body to loot it. Normally they divide things up, but it’s taken them the better part of three nights to find him another one of these guys. It’s all his. “Please tell me that didn’t work.”

“Girl went home with him,” on the computer screen, the elf shrugs. “I can’t explain it. Everyone at Ryerson is weird.”

“Well, you’d know from weird better than most, wouldn’t you,” Jack says, and then frowns at the little window that pops up on his screen. Metal bustier, +10 speed. “Wait, why is a shadewolf dropping armour instead of pelts? You’re kidding me.”

He flicks into the inventory menu, and swaps out W.G.’s usual breastplate for the new item, and Eugene just starts howling into his mic. When he exits the screen, he sees why.

“That isn’t amour! That — that’s a bra,” and he’d be scandalized, if he weren’t so busy being impressed by the level of detail the D and D animators have put into modelling paladin abdominal muscles. “What kind of game has monsters dropping lingerie? What do they think we’re getting up to out here exactly?”

“I think Ser William’s never looked better,” Eugene says, and then breaks off laughing again, slightly muffled this time, like he’s turned his mic away.

“Oh, well then,” he has to scroll through a couple menus to find the command, but after a few seconds and a couple of clicks Ser W.G. puts a hand on his hip and another up to his face and does a pretty convincing little shimmy. Though the headphones, Jack thinks he hears something clunk.

“Stop, stop,” Eugene moans.

“It’s just that Ser William feels pretty,” Jack trills. “Oh so pretty.”

“No.”

“Pretty, and witty, and—”

“No.”

“Spoilsport,” he mutters, and leaves the bra equipped for the rest of the night.

—

**NOVEMBER**

And, okay, so maybe it turns into a standing thing. Jack stays up insanely late, Eugene logs on after classes, and they mess around on whatever server isn’t too busy and mostly won’t get them killed — which seems to change week to week with Demons and Darkness.

Eugene still refuses to roleplay, but eventually lets Jack craft him an epic backstory where all his clansmen (and clansladies) were wiped out by the shambling hordes and Marr of house Darksomething-or-other now wanders the world as a sword for hire to escape the pain.

Or, as Eugene puts it to Sam when he joins them to escape what sounds like one really shit all night cram session, “zombies fall, everyone dies, my elven pain. Blah blah blah.”

“You really take the poetry out of everything, you know that?” Jack says, as W.G. takes a swipe at the elf with the flat of his axe.

Sam’s enchantress facepalms in response. But they do manage to kick the crap out of five level 50 shamblers before they’re all so low on potions they have to sneak back to Abel under one of Sam’s stealth spells, just to avoid dying if an angry raccoon or something decides to attack.

“Did I tell you Sam and I went to uni together?” Jack asks, as the three of them try to shuffle their characters along the forest path as slowly and in-sync as possible. He’s really going to have to talk to Sam about putting more points into his defence skills. Would be nice to at least be able to walk all the way back to the township normally without the spell dropping.

“For like three weeks, until someone dropped out.”

“I just decided to go in a different direction,” he huffs, and ignores a muffled snicker from Eugene.

“That’s what we’re calling working part time in a record shop and helping Simon run illegal raves now?” Sam snorts. “Oh man, so when I fail this test tomorrow I should just tell everyone I chose to go in a different direction with the answers?”

Jack opens a private chat screen and very carefully types  **I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON MARMITE. :P**

 _dont bring marmite into this,_  Sam writes back.

“What are you studying?” Eugene asks. And that would be a good subject change most of the time. But just now, Jack winces.

“Engineering,” Sam says, in the tone of voice Jack personally prefers to save for saying things like 'killing puppies’ or 'setting fire to rainbows’ or 'no more beer.’

“That’s… good?”

“Eugene’s in journalism school,” Jack blurts, before this can get worse. “In Canada. You know, the big country with all the moose and the maple trees and mountains and things?”

“They don’t really have moose in Toronto, you know,” Eugene says with what Jack can tell is a relieved chuckle. “Or mountains.”

“Shush, don’t destroy my dreams,” Jack tells him.

“You have moose dreams?” Sam sounds creeped out, but slightly less like he might be about to throw himself out his dorm window, thank God. “I did not want to know that about you, Holden.”

 **CHOKE ON ALL THE THINGS** , Jack adds to their chat window.  **ALL OF THEM.**

“Moose creep,” Sam says aloud, and Eugene dissolves into a fit of laughter that lasts most of the way back to Abel Township.

—

Jack’s in the process of reorganizing the punk rock section at the shop (that is, moving the Green Day albums over to Rock/Pop) when Simon comes bursting through the door in a whirl of scarf and hair gel and some sort of fancy man perfume he’s taken to wearing lately.

So how come Sam gets to meet your internet boyfriend and I don’t?“

"My what?” Half the CDs he’s holding hit the floor with a clatter. Good thing his manager’s in back. “What are you even doing here, I thought you were in Brighton for the weekend.”

“No point leaving before 10 on a Friday, is there?” Simon steps over the CDs, leans against the rack on the other side. “But seriously, internet boy. Is he fit? Cause the last couple guys you’ve dated were total dogs.”

“I don’t know what he looks like—”

Simon 'tsks’ and shakes his head.

“Because he’s not my internet boyfriend,” Jack finishes, with a glare. “What are we even — are we talking about Eugene?”

“No, we’re talking about the other Canadian you won’t shut up about, every time we play D and D,” Simon elbows him in the ribs, and the last few jewel cases he’d managed to hold on to hit the ground. “Samwell said he sounds like he could be hot.”

“Sam said that?” he ducks down and scoops the CDs into a pile, then shoves them under the shelving unit. Better this way, anyway. All those would-be Green Day fans will thank him in the long run.

“Well, no, not actually. I’m paraphrasing. Why haven’t you made him send you a pic yet?”

“How much coffee have you had today?” Jack asks, straightening back up and trying to get a good look at Simon’s pupils.

“There’s a reason Skype was invented, and it’s not actually so businessmen can still see the power points at the office meeting without coming in,” Simon waggles his eyebrows and Jack considers braining him with a Beatles box set. “Tell me you’re not doing it in-game, because that’s just weird, man.”

“Okay, one: stop. Two: shut up. Three: go away. And four: we’re just friends.”

“Uh huh.” Simon doesn’t look convinced, and Jack groans.

“We chat a bit on the internet while killing shamblers,” he protests. “That’s hardly skipping through fields of daisies holding hands.”

“Sam says you finish each other’s sentences. A lot.”

“Sam sucks,” Jack grumbles.

“So if you’re not dating anyone, that means you’ll come down to Brighton with me tonight, right?” Simon says, smooth as anything, and he knows he’s been had.

“Don’t have train fare.”

“I’ll lend you some. Not like we don’t have a tab going,” Simon slings an arm around his shoulder, and rubs his knuckles against the top of his head, and Jack wonders if his manager would go easy on the 'don’t assault the customers’ policy just this once. “C'mon, it’s student night at Legends. Plenty of blokes for you, lots of their straight girl friends out looking for the kind of sensitive guy who can support his gay pal on the hunt for true love for me.”

“I still can’t believe that works for you,” Jack sighs, and makes a mental note to message Eugene that he’ll be offline for most of the weekend when he goes home to change.

—

“Oh, someone’s alive after all,” Simon crows, when Jack logs in Monday night to find his whole usual guild surrounding Eugene’s elf outside the Abel Township farmhouse.

“Shut up,” Jack says, “what are you lot doing here anyway?”

“Well, seeing as how you wandered off on me the other night with that blond fellow,” Simon says, all fake casual. “Sam and Jody and I were concerned for your well being.”

“And we wanted to meet your internet boy—” Jody starts, “your, uh, internet friend.”

“I’m just here to watch Simon take the piss,” Sam says. Which is at least honest, Jack guesses.

“In that case, Eugene, meet these terrible people I’ve somehow brought upon myself,” Jack says, with a sigh. The elf waves, but Eugene doesn’t say anything and — oh. Oh shit. It’s not like they’ve ever talked about liking girls or guys, unless you count all those 'journalists suck at pickup lines’ stories. And Eugene seems cool and all but this is probably not the way he should be coming out to random guys he swings swords around with on the internet.

Which actually sounds, like, really homoerotic now that he’s thought it. Huh.

“Speaking of people you’ve brought off,” Simon starts, and Jack bangs  **SHUT UP**  into a private chat window.

 _Nope_ , is all he gets back. Oh that’s it, gloves off then.

“I’m amazed you even noticed, given how busy you were tonguing with that Towie reject all night,” he says back, as light as he can. “Seriously, mate, if you have to go on tiptoe to get around her implants, you might want to rethink your choices.”

Someone snickers, but he’s not sure who.

“Is he cute this time?” Jody asks, and where have Jack’s friends all gotten the impression that everyone he dates is awful looking? He’s going to have to look into this.

“Yeah, Jack, come on. Details,” and that’s — that’s definitely Eugene, sounding just as sly and smarmy as the rest of them. Which is fantastic, on one hand, if also a bit terrible because if they’re all ganging up on him there’s no way he’s getting out of this.

“He’s nice,” Jack says. “Can we go kill monsters now, please?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Simon says. “'Nice’ doesn’t make you stop answering your phone for two days.”

Someone else sounds like they’re choking on something. “Go Jack,” Eugene says, around a cough, and yes, that’s it. His life is over now.

“Is it serious?” Jody asks, and everyone else on the comm link groans. “Guys, be nice.”

“He’s coming up next weekend for a bit,” he says, trying for noncommittal and aware that he’s gone red all the way down his chest. At least no one in game can see. “It’s no big thing.”

“That’s what he said,” Sam says, and this time everyone, including Jack, groans.

—

“Your friends seem cool,” Eugene says about two hours later, when the rest of the guild has packed it off to bed, complaining about the time. Some people just don’t know how to chase a sunrise.

“'Seem’ is an important word there,” Jack grumbles, and takes a swipe at a warebear that just refuses to go down. “If you get cornered again, it’s really best to play dead until they get distracted by something shiny.”

“They’d probably try to loot my corpse,” Eugene says, as his elf launches an ice spell that’s even less effective than W.G.’s axe. “God, what has this bear been eating?”

“Dunno, but I want some,” electrifying W.G.’s axe is usually a waste of magic power, but nothing else is working here. The blade goes hissing through the air, and when it connects the bear lurches. Critical hit. Jack whoops into the mic. “Finally.”

“Nice,” a second lightening bolt strikes the bear, who finally seems to be slowing down. “So, what’s your boyfriend’s name?”

Jack’s not sure exactly what keys his fingers slip down on at that, but whatever they are, they make Ser William do some sort of disco move. Which gives the bear a nice opening to attack him and send him reeling back a couple paces. Crap.

“It’s not really like — I mean, we’re just getting to know each other and — it’s only been the one weekend, so,” deep breaths, Holden. And he’d been worried about  _Eugene_  having a freak out. “His name’s Richard.”

“Cool,” Eugene says, prepping another storm spell. “You need a potion?”

“I’m good,” another lightening axe hit, and his magic’s nearly drained, but the bear is starting to sag. A few more hits should do it. “So, it doesn’t bother you, then? Playing swords and sorcerers with a gay guy?”

“Swords and sorcerers sounds like the worse euphemism ever,” Eugene fires off the spell, and the bear goes down in a heap. “Finally — and you’ve got 'gay’ in your bio on your player profile page. It’s wasn’t a surprise to me.”

“You checked my profile? Stalker.”

“Journalist,” Eugene’s elf is too busy looting the warebear corpse to bother with its usual shrug, but Jack gets the idea without the animation. “And if you’re worrying about it, I’m guessing you never checked mine.”

“Guess I just lack the news instinct,” Jack starts, with a sniff. “Not everyone’s got it in them to be a creep— wait. Hold on a tic.”

It takes him a couple seconds to remember how to pull the thing up. Eugene aside, he doesn’t have much to do with anyone but his regular D and D crew. When he gets there, the profile is mostly bare. No avatar, birth date without the year attached, location listed as 'Ontario, Canada,’ and one line of bio:  _Say 'fag’ again and this queer elf will shoot your ass full of arrows._

“Someone’s combative,” Jack says, for lack of any other thoughts.

“Clearly you have never had to band together with a group of junior high school kids to survive a dragon attack,” Eugene says. “Don’t, by the way.”

“Yeah, I’ll take your word on that,” he drums his fingers on the back of the mouse and suddenly this is all weird, and he’s not sure why. Not like anything’s actually changed. But Jack has no idea what to say. When another bloody bear comes charging at them from out of nowhere, he has to bite his tongue to keep from muttering something like 'thank God’ into the mic.

Except, shit. It occurs to them they’ve got a new problems now.

“Hey Gene, don’t suppose you’ve got any magic left, do you?”

There’s a long pause.

“You run east, I run west, we meet back at Abel and hope no one gets eaten?” Eugene offers.

“Deal,” Jack says, and kicks W.G. into a run. Their comm link breaks a couple minutes later as he crosses onto a new map, and if he maybe takes a longer than necessary route back to the township, well, it’s only because Ser William is they type to worry about leading nasty, hard-to-kill monsters towards settlements of innocent people.

It’s heroism. That’s what it is.

—

**DECEMBER**

Jack bangs the door to his bedroom shut behind him and sinks down onto the mattress on the floor without bothering about shoes or trousers or anything. Just crushes his face into the pillow and pulls the blankets up over his head and attempts not to think about anything whatsoever.

Which works not at all, of course, but it was worth a shot.

Stupid, stupid, stupid of him. As usual. He shouldn’t even be surprised at this point, but fuck if it doesn’t sting anyway, and Jack sniffles and mashes his face harder against the pillow. Enough pressure and maybe the itching in his eyes will go away without him doing anything as pathetic as actually crying over this.

In his back pocket, his phone chimes. And — he shouldn’t hope, but maybe there’s a chance, and—

_give ur boy a kiss for me, yeah? ;) -Simon_

Jack turns the phone off and hurls it across the room. It hits the wall with a clatter and he’s pretty sure some essential part of it goes skittering off into the closet. Whatever. He could care less.

God, he feels like an idiot. An idiot with a messed up sleep schedule, because while he’d like nothing more just now than to be able to fall asleep for the next 24 hours or so it’s 1 a.m. and he’s wide awake. Too late to call anyone. Not that he’d call Simon or Sam on something like this, and Jody said something about yarnbombing a statue somewhere with her textile guild. He’s not totally sure what that means, but he’s pretty sure black ops knitters would frown on people taking personal calls during their missions.

There’s Jill, but calling his baby sister in the middle of the night for a sob session is only going to lead to his mum showing up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning to bustle around and clean stuff and fret. Which sounds pretty good, actually, but maybe in a couple days, when he’s got it in him to do more than lie here and hate himself.

Also, there’s a pretty good chance he’s going to need to buy a new phone before he can call anyone. There’s another mistake to add to the ever-growing list.

He pulls the blankets tighter, like some sort of misery cocoon. Somewhere below, he can hear a faint bit of traffic noise and he tries to focus on that, or the thumping of footsteps in the flat above his own, or the sound of water running through creaky old pipes.

And… no. Still not distracted, still self-loathing.

Jack rolls over, staring at the ceiling. The skin around his eyes is damp and chilly after being pressed against the pillow and he’d wipe at them but what’s the point even?

This is not working.

He hauls himself upright, keeping the blanket tucked up under his chin like a backwards cape, and thumps back down into his computer chair. Got to be something he can do to take his mind off this. It’s a big old internet after all. A few cat videos, maybe a quick trip to one of those websites that’s all GIFs of porn that Jack keeps hidden in a bookmarks folder called 'dinner ideas’ (which admittedly would fool no one who’s ever tasted his cooking) and he’ll be his old cheery self again.

Fifteen minutes later he’s sobbing into the blankets while watching a video of a kitten snuggling a Golden Retriever puppy and it’s safe to say the experiment’s failed. Maybe lying awake in the dark wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Certainly no worse than this.

He’s trying to work out whether wheeling the chair over to the mattress and then sliding off it is liable to cause any serious injuries when a black D and D alert box slides up in the bottom corner of the screen.

_MarrDarksomething is online._

Jack doubleclicks it before he can tell himself it’s a bad idea.

**you got time to talk?**

_Hey. I’m playing on Brunswick. Couple of guys in my dorm are trying to organize a raid. You want to join?_

Yeah, that’s a big old no. Going raiding with a bunch of randoms may not the be worst thing that Jack can think of to do in this state, but right now it’s pretty high up the list.

**no thanks. not very good company just now. :(**

_Everything okay?_

**not really**

_Eugene is typing_ , the program tells him for what seems like an awfully long time. Then,  _I was going to ask if you wanted to talk about it but I guess you already said that. Do you have Skype?_

—

Tinny music blares out of his computer speakers, and Jack takes a fortifying breath, wraps the blanket tighter around his shoulders and accepts the call from EugeneBWoods.

And then immediately wishes he hadn’t.

“Hey,” Eugene grins and waves at him, shifting in his chair to try to get his head fully in the frame.

To say he’s not what Jack expected is maybe the biggest understatement in all of history. The image he’d had in his head of Eugene hadn’t been fully formed, but he’d been picturing this gawky, awkward nerd-type. Braces and stupid hair. The kind of guy who wouldn’t have anything better to do than hang out on the internet and kill armour-plated bears with some dork who lives overseas.

The boy staring at him via slightly grainy webcam is — is just.

He’s really damn hot, is the thing. Just unfairly good looking, all casually mussy hair and nice shoulders and the kind of mouth Jack would want to run his fingertips along in real life. And he is suddenly painfully aware that his hair is sticking up and his nose is red and his eyes are watering and he’s still doing his best impression of a blanket mountain.

“Jack?” Eugene asks, when he doesn’t say anything back, leaning in close to his computer screen and squinting. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry,” his voice cracks a bit and he coughs and tries to scrub away the worst of the tears still beading in his eyelashes with the back of one hand. “Kind of a shit night, over here.”

“What happened?”

Jack lets out a long breath. “Richard’s dumped me.”

The second he says it he feels like such an ass. Making such a fit over this guy who he’s seen all of three weekends over the last four weeks, and whose final grand summation of their relationship was essentially 'the sex was okay, but I don’t see much going on here.’ Though the fact that he’d waited until after they’d been making out for half an hour to bring that up does sting a lot, still.

And he’s scrambling to put together some kind of apology when Eugene nods and says, “Clearly he’s a douchebag with no taste.”

Which has the unfortunate effect of setting Jack sniffling again, but he manages a bit of a smile in spite of it. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

“Do you,” Eugene shrugs, “I don’t know. Want to tell me what he said or something?”

“Not really,” it’s Jack’s turn to shrug, though he’s not sure it translates when the lower half of his body isn’t really visible. “I guess he thought I wasn’t that interesting.”

“That’s stupid,” he leans forward, propping his chin on one hand and, yup, he’s got nice forearms too. Jack pinches himself hard on the thigh and tries not to notice. “Guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Obviously I wouldn’t hang out with you if you were boring.”

“Oh gosh, I’ve got the Eugene Woods stamp of approval, then?” There’s a warm feeling building in his stomach, and he can feel the back of his neck starting to flush. “I’ll have to add that to the C.V.”

“Yeah, tell all your dates,” Eugene grins and ducks his head a bit, so he’s looking up at Jack through his eyelashes. “It’s like the Michelin stars. They don’t just hand those out to everyone.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, either,” are they — they’re not flirting. Well, Jack might be, but he’s had a bad night and he needs the ego boost. Eugene’s obviously not doing it back. Probably just some thing they teach you in journalism school, how to charm the pants off of everyone you talk to. Either way, he needs to change the subject before. Before something. He’s not sure what. “What about you, seeing anyone?”

“Me?” he looks a bit thrown, and Jack probably could have picked a less suggestive topic for that subject change, now that he thinks about it. “Not really. I’ve told you about the people I go to school with, right?”

“Not jumping at the chance to 'go on deep background’?” Jack says because, oh yeah, he’s heard the stories.

Eugene groans and covers his face with his hands, shoulders shaking. “Please never say that again.”

“There’s, like, an obvious Deepthroat joke I’m having trouble putting together right now, I think.”

The noise that comes through his speakers sounds a bit like a snort, and Eugene’s definitely laughing now. “Wow.”

“Does everything you learn at journo school sound kind of,” he tries to think of a word, “…dirty?”

“It does,” Eugene says with something like horror, and breaks off laughing again, harder now. “Ooh baby, let me show you my nutgraph.”

“I don’t know what that means, but I think we might want to take things a bit slower than that,” Jack says, mock serious. “I’m old fashioned.”

“We’ll lede into it,” Eugene says, and grins like he’s proud of himself.

“I don’t get it.”

“Like, the first sentence of a story? That’s your — this is not as funny when I explain it.”

“So that was a no on the boyfriend or girlfriend thing, right?” Jack says, and immediately wants to kick himself because where the fuck did that come from.

“Yeah, that’s a no,” and Eugene’s looking at him funny now. A little considering and damn it, damn it, damn it he is not flirting with the internet boy and even if he kind of is, he can fix this.

“Maybe it’s just 'cause you haven’t tried that nut-grab line on anyone yet.”

“Nutgraph,” and there they go, he’s laughing again. “It’s a paragraph where you — oh who cares. What is it you think I do?”

“Not sure,” Jack says, and lets himself relax again. “But I have to say I’m suddenly tempted to go hang round the back doors of newspaper offices and see what pops up.”

—

Jill meets him at the bus stop and immediately pulls him into a hug, as though it’s been more than a couple weeks since Jack last ventured out to his parents’ place in the suburbs for Sunday supper. He ruffles her hair and she kicks him in the shins as she pulls back. Gently, though. They’re family after all.

“What was that for?” he asks.

“Terrence told Aunt Millie who told mum that he heard from a friend of yours that you got dumped again,” she says with a shrug, trying to pat her ponytail back into place. “Thought you could use a hug.”

“Oh God, she knows?” He’s managed some sleep now and the whole thing doesn’t seem near as bad as it did last night, but that doesn’t mean he’s up to questions and fretting just yet, and his mum’s a champion at both.

“Like you were going to be able to keep that a secret,” Jill says, turning and starting up the street toward the house. “Five minutes in, you’d have been bawling on the couch and watching Hollyoaks reruns like you do every single time this happens.”

“That’s a—” he stops. “Okay, that’s not a lie. But I’m fine this time. It’s not a big deal.”

“Sure it’s not,” she looks back at him over her shoulder, squinting. “You do get dumped a lot, don’t you? Have you got a disease?”

“You are the worst little sister of all time,” Jack says, picking up his pace so he can catch up to her, then attempt to shoulder check her into the neighbour’s hedge. “They should make a special award, just to recognize how bad you are at sistering.”

“Mum says it’s cause you keep dating guys that aren’t up to your standards,” Jill says, doing this sing-song thing on the last word that stretches it out to about five syllables. “I’m sticking with the disease theory.”

“Oh yeah, because you’re doing so well in the dating department,” Jack grumbles.

“I’m sixteen. Sixteen year-old boys are rubbish,” Jill says. “I’m waiting for uni, thanks.”

Jack thinks of Sam and Simon. “Maybe wait longer than that,” he suggests, and Jill sticks out her tongue at him.

“I’m only going to date smart boys. You should try it.”

“What you going to do, get mum to give them IQ tests when they come to pick you up?”

“Maybe,” she swats at his shoulder and when Jack ducks away he nearly falls off the curb. “Dummy, I’d just know they were smart, wouldn’t I?”

And it’s terrible, but suddenly all he can think of is Eugene leaning across his keyboard and saying  _it’s like the Michelin stars._  God, he hates his brain. Just hates it so much.

“Yeah, I guess you would,” he says aloud, and tries to distract himself by redoubling his efforts to knock Jill into the hedge.

—

Jack’s pretty sure he’s going to some sort of special retail hell for not informing his manager at the music shop that he’s no longer got morning class commitments, but if it means getting to sleep to noon pretty much every day of the week right now he’s not going to worry.

So when his (new) mobile starts going off at 8 a.m. on a Friday morning he’s not sure what to do. No one who knows him would possibly be calling this early, because since leaving school Jack has made it a rule to never be of any use to anyone before at least half 10.

He groans and fumbles the thing off the floor next to the mattress and tries to remember where the 'shut up and go to voicemail’ button is on the new model. The number stops him. Way too many digits for normal and that country code…

“Hello?” his voice is a bit slurry, but that’s what whoever this is gets for phoning at ungodly-ass-o'clock.

“Jack? Hey, it’s me.”

This is some sort of odd dream, he decides. The bed’s too comfortable, he must have fallen asleep again, because in no way does it make sense for Eugene’s voice to be in his ear, slow and maybe kind of syrupy? Not happening, obviously.

Sure, they exchanged numbers a couple weeks back, after that first Skype session. And they’ve sent each other a couple texts each (only a couple, because damn long distance texting fees are ridiculous), but it’s not like Jack was ever expecting a real, actual phone call out of this.

“What time is it there?” he asks, biting back a yawn.

“Four in the morning, I think?” Eugene laughs soft in his ear and Jack squeezes his eyes shut and rolls over so he can push his face into the pillow. “I might be kinda drunk. Or stoned. Or both? There was this guest lecture and the reception had free booze and some of the guys were — this is a boring story, sorry.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the drunk dial,” Jack says. “But aren’t I a bit long distance?”

“Bought a phone card. International Pre-Paid something something,” Eugene sort of laughs again and it’s too easy to picture him, face flushed and grinning, pupils huge and his hair a mess. He probably looks amazing just now. Jack should probably stop thinking about this immediately.

“So, what’s up, then?” And there’s an obvious joke in there, because when he shifts his hips against the mattress the little bit of friction is enough to make him grit his teeth.

“Nothing much. I just wanted someone to talk to on the walk back to the dorm. Thought I’d say hi, ” he sounds a little sheepish and Jack has to bite his tongue to hold back all the stupid things that threaten to come spilling out of his mouth like  _I’m glad you called_  and  _I wish I was there_  and  _what are you wearing?_  “I, uh, didn’t think this through, I guess. It’s not even a long walk. I’m two blocks away. Three blocks? Shit, I can’t remember.”

“You are so pissed,” Jack says around a shaky laugh, and he is not going to become the kind of creep who rubs one out while talking to the internet boy. He’s not. But Eugene’s voice is so warm right now and Jack’s still half asleep and if he gets a hand between the him and the mattress and presses down against it  _just so_ —

“Yeah, I am,” Eugene’s saying. “Sorry, I know. I’m at my building. I should — I’m gonna take a shower and try to sleep, okay?”

“Good idea,” it comes out pretty steady, all things considered and fuck, that whole showering thing was not a mental image he needed just this second. “See you around Abel later?”

“You got it.”

When they’ve finally hung up and Jack’s given in and slipped a hand into his underwear he lasts all of two, maybe three minutes. So he’s exactly that kind of creep, apparently.

God, he is in so much trouble.

—

_Hey. Sorry about last night._

**what for?**

_Did the timezone calculation. I woke you up didn’t I?_

**it’s OK**

_I was worried it might have been weird._

**yes it’s weird that you called me after i gave you my number**

_Is it?_

**youre cute when youre drunk :)**

_…shut up, Jack._

—

Simon sips at his chai latte and regards Jack with an expression that holds no sympathy whatsoever. “Well, at least no one you know saw this coming.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Jack practically wails, eliciting glares from half the people in the coffee shop. “He lives in another country. Across an actual ocean. This is terrible. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Down, boy,” he rocks back on his chair, tipping it onto two legs, and Jack starts trying to will him to fall over. “Look, he’s in another country. That’s great, seriously. Just try not to start wanking when the two of you are on webcams together and he’ll never notice. Unless, of course, you think he’d be into that sort of thing.”

“Shut up,” he puts his head down on the table and tries to ignore the blush building in his cheeks. Serves him right, he supposes, for coming to Simon for advice. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. “What if I want him to notice?”

Simon throws a crumpled up napkin at him. “You don’t.”

“But—”

“Yeah, have fun never having sex again, then. You’d last three weeks.” He feels something on the back of his head and, is Simon patting him? Okay, weird. Weird and a little appreciated right now, if he’s being honest (though he is never, ever going to admit that).

“I just really like him,” it comes out whiny and he does not give a shit. “He’s smart and funny and oh God he is so hot, Simon, it’s not even fair.”

“Right, that’s it. You’re coming clubbing.”

“It’s, like, Tuesday,” he protests, but it’s pretty obviously a weak argument.

“And if we can’t get you laid by Friday then we’ll just have to assume all the boys in Britain have developed standards,” Simon says with a grin, pulling his legs away as Jack tries to kick him in the shins.

Oh yeah. This is why he called Simon.

—

**JANUARY**

For a couple weeks, it almost seems like it works. Simon may normally be kind of a terrible person, but when he decides he’s going to get you laid he follows through. Jack’s pretty sure he goes to more Christmas and New Year’s parties in two weeks than he has in his entire life, and it turns out that if you’re not that discriminating the holidays are a hookup goldmine.

It doesn’t hurt either that work is crazy this time of year, and that Eugene disappears to somewhere in B.C. to visit his parents and their less impressive desktop computer for the holidays and doesn’t manage more than a couple emails the entire time.

Sure, it’s not like Jack’s meeting soul mate candidates or anything, but a couple of the guys Simon introduces him to (or shoves him into in line for drinks) seem halfway decent. Worth getting phone numbers from, anyway, even if he hasn’t managed to call any of them yet.

And then one night he’s hacking at some sort of Christmas tree/troll hybrid thing the Demons and Darkness designers added for some 'holiday cheer’ — and because he’d finally gotten to the point in the game where not every single creature was a serious death risk, Jack thinks bitterly, as an attack sends him back into the red — and Eugene says, “what are you doing the second week of February?”

“Dunno,” Jack says, because who plans that far ahead and oh, fuck, how can a tree be this deadly? This is ridiculous. “Potion?”

“I’m out,” he casts some sort of fire spell and the tree-troll doesn’t even seem to notice. “If we die because of Christmas I give up on this game.”

“I give up on life,” Jack sighs, and tries to duck out of the way as a branch swipes at him. “Why’d you want to know about February?”

“It’s nothing.” A different branch sends the elf flying and Eugene curses. “We’re screwed. Ser William, it’s been a pleasure fighting at your side.”

“And you said you didn’t role play,” Jack says, just before another attack — and did that thing just throw exploding ornaments at him? What is wrong with these developers? — sends Ser William to his knees with a mighty groan.

He’s still standing in the Abel Township graveyard in ghost form when Eugene’s elf, now translucent, pops up a few minutes later. “Boo.”

“We have got to find somewhere easier to play,” Jack sighs. “So while we walk back to our bodies, you going to tell me what’s in February?”

“It’s not — we didn’t do gifts this year because it’s not like I could really get anything on the plane back to Toronto, so I have a bunch of cash instead and it turns out plane tickets to England are insanely cheap if you’re a student,” he says it in a rush, like he can’t get it out of his mouth fast enough. “And I thought maybe if I was in London for a couple days over reading week we could hang out?”

It is a miracle that Jack doesn’t run W.G. straight into the side of a building. “Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That would be amaz — it’d be cool.”

“Are you sure? I’d stay in a hostel or something, you wouldn’t have to deal with me the whole time or anything.”

“No, I would,” Jack interrupts. “Because obviously you’re staying with me and obviously I’m going to force you to hang out with me the entire time you’re in the country.”

“You don’t have to—

"You don’t get a say in this, so shush.” The ghosts don’t do any of the good animations, or Jack would have W.G. wag a finger or something.

Eugene laughs, and that warm feeling in Jack’s stomach is back with a vengeance. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” he says back, casual as he can, then scrambles his phone open to text Simon.

**CODE RED MAN**

**CODE RED**

**WHAT DO I DO IF HE’S NOT IN ANOTHER COUNTRY????**

_he’s here?_

_then you should probably hit that ;)_

“Are you okay?” Eugene asks, and it occurs to Jack that the sound of him smacking himself on the forehead repeatedly might be getting picked up by the mic.

—

**FEBRUARY**

Eugene’s plane gets in just stupid early, to the point where rather than go to bed at all Jack just spends another few hours blearily chasing things around the D and D servers before hopping the first train of the day out to the airport. So he’s most of the way asleep in a chair in the arrivals area at Heathrow, desperately trying to keep a grip on his paper cup of tea when a pair of denim-clad legs drag to a stop in front of him and a soft voice says, “Jack?”

He looks up, and Eugene’s standing there, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, looking about equal parts rumpled, nervous and excited, if Jack’s reading him right.

“Hey,” he gets to his feet without thinking, and they’re practically chest-to-chest. Eugene smells a bit like stale plane air, and a bit like soap and a lot nicer than he should and oh God this is going to be the most awkward week of his life, isn’t it? Jack scrambles for something to say. “Flight alright?”

“Fourteen hours with screaming babies,” but he grins anyway, and suddenly Jack’s being pulled in for a bear hug and a thump on the back. “I am so tired I can’t even believe it.”

“Bed?” Jack says in a daze, then mentally kicks himself and forces himself to disentangle his arms from where they’ve wrapped around Eugene’s back. “I mean, we can go back to mine and — I could use a bit more shut eye anyway.”

“Awesome,” he’s still grinning and it’s not fair. He’s even more attractive in real life, without the pixellation and with all his actions synced up to his voice. “Lead the way?”

Yeah, Jack is so fucked.

“Come with me if you want to… nap?” he says innocently, raising an eyebrow, and dodges away laughing when Eugene tries to swat him on the shoulder.

—

Eugene falls asleep with his head on Jack’s shoulder on the train ride home.

Jack uses the time to send about half a dozen panicked text messages to every member of his D and D guild. Jody asks for pictures (which he feels like kind of a weirdo taking, even though no one in their car even glances in their direction), Sam doesn’t respond at all (class, maybe?) and Simon texts back  _remember to get condoms on the way home_. His friends are not helpful people.

Waking him up doesn’t do much good either, because then Eugene’s all hazy eyed and slow moving and stumbling. It takes pretty much everything Jack’s got not to push him up against the wall of the station, or the stairwell or, like, a random lamp post on the way home and just cuddle him to death. And he’s starting to see how inviting his internet crush to come sleep in his bed for a week may have been a bad decision. Less than an hour in and he already feels like the King of All The Creeps.

His bed isn’t so much a real bed as it is a mattress and box spring on the floor, but if Eugene even notices he doesn’t say anything. Just pitches himself down face first with a groan and — and Jack does not have any untoward thoughts as a result of that. No. Of course not.

Jack lies down right at the edge of the mattress, trying to put as much space between them as possible, and folds his arms across his chest, tucking his hands into his arm pits. Just two platonic internet friends taking a nap together. Platonically. God, crushes suck.

He’s pretty sure Eugene’s passed out on top of the blankets, shoes still on, when he sighs and pushes himself into a sitting position. “Uh, so there’s something I should have told you earlier.”

“Okay?” Jack blinks up at him. He looks a bit nervous, and it’s not all that clear why. “You’re not some sort of secret Canadian spy are you? 'Cause I’ll have to turn you in. Loyalty to the crown and all.”

“What?” Eugene’s eyebrows knit together, and he smothers a yawn with one hand as he shakes his head. “Why would I be spying on you?”

“Ouch,” Jack says, and sulks at him.

“You’re making my brain hurt,” Eugene’s sort of smiling now, but he still seems tense. “I guess the easiest thing is to just—” And then he’s leaning over and tugging at the right leg of his jeans, to reveal a metal bar where Jack would have expected an ankle.

“Ah?” he says, because that’s a helpful response.

“Yeah,” Eugene shrugs. “I was walking in the woods one night and there was this bear trap…” He trails off and gives this little one-shoulder shrug and a sheepish smile, like he’s made a funny.

“Huh?” Jack offers, still so helpfully.

Eugene’s smile dims a bit. “You haven’t seen that YouTube video. Okay. I’m going to show you that when it’s not — later. After I can see straight again.”

Jack nods, still confused, and they’re just staring at each other now. Should he say something else? What’s he supposed to do in this scenario? And he hadn’t thought things could get more awkward.

“Are you going to freak if I take it off?” Eugene asks, finally. “With the plane ride — it gets sore after a while.”

“No freaking out here,” Jack says. And it’s sort of a lie, but really given all the other shit at play here, an artificial limb is the least of his worries. “Though, uh, this is all kind of a surprise, I’ll admit. Didn’t see that coming so much. How far up does it go?”

“A little above the knee,” he leans down to work at his shoelaces and Jack forces himself to look somewhere other that the sliver of skin that shows as his shirt rides up at the back. “Sorry I didn’t bring it up sooner but. It doesn’t really come up in casual conversation, you know? I wasn’t thinking, and it’s not like we live in the same country or anything and—”

“I could see that. The whole casual conversation thingy, I mean. 'Oh by the way, I’m missing half a leg,’ doesn’t really follow well from ’ hey I found this new plus three armour,’ I guess.” And he’d started talking to give Eugene an out but shit, he’s babbling too now isn’t he? “Er, not that it couldn’t, if you wanted it to. But I guess if you didn’t — please say something so I’ll shut up?”

Eugene laughs at him. Rude. But he doesn’t get all that many seconds to be offended, because Eugene’s sitting back and his hands go to the button on his jeans and he glances over at Jack with that same awkward half smile. It’s not exactly how any of his fantasies have gone before now, but it’s definitely going to figure into them in the future. “Uh, I can’t really get it off with my pants on, so…”

It takes an embarrassingly long time to get what he’s asking, and when it finally clicks Jack nearly throws himself off the bed turning away. “Right, right, sorry. Sorry about that. Go ahead. Your virtue is safe with me.”

And why did he have to say that?

Another laugh, and then any number of shifting sounds that Jack can imagine the source of all too well. He waits until he feels the mattress dip as Eugene crawls under the covers before he lets himself look back over. He’s lying on his stomach, eyes already shut, and unless Jack squints hard at the blankets down by his feet there’s no sign anything’s different at all.

“Alright?” he asks.

Eugene doesn’t respond, save for a sleepy, soft humming sound.

Jack waits until he’s about 99 per cent certain he’s out again before pulling out his phone for another round of frantic texting.

—

The queue inches forward another few steps and Jack squints up at several hundred feet of metal and plastic and then sneaks another glance at Eugene. “We’re seriously doing this?”

“Seriously,” he’s still a bit smudgy under the eyes, but their five hour nap seems to have mostly done the trick. Eugene’s practically bouncing next to him, hands jammed in his pockets, grinning like a loon. Not likely to fall asleep on anyone any time soon, and Jack is telling himself he won’t miss it. “I already bought you a ticket, you’re not allowed to back out. One tacky tourist thing to kick off the trip, and you never have to suffer again.”

“It’s just,” Jack says, giving the little capsules at the very top of the London Eye another quick look and wishing he hadn’t. “It’s very high up, isn’t it?”

“You’re not—”

“I wouldn’t call it a fear of heights, exactly. But, and I’m just throwing this out there, what if it falls off?”

“What if what falls off?” Eugene’s eyes are bright but his face is serious. If it weren’t for his voice, Jack wouldn’t be able to tell he’s trying not to laugh.

“The wheel part, off the big spoke thingy,” he shrugs. “Or the capsule bit. There’s lots of choices for disaster, if you think about it.”

“Do you want me to hold your hand while we’re up there?” he’s very grave and very mocking and Jack wants to punch him in the arm almost as much as he wants to say  _yeah, yeah I do actually_.

“Don’t see how that would help when we’re tumbling into the Thames,” he mumbles instead, and kicks at the pavement.

They stand up against the railing at the edge of their capsule, Eugene leaning forward, nose a few inches from the glass, Jack facing inward and trying to look as though he fully intends to turn around eventually. Though that all goes to hell when the wheel starts to turn and he grabs at the rail with both hands and clings.

“There there,” Eugene pats him on the shoulder, not sounding sympathetic at all. “You should look while we’re on the way up. It’ll be worse coming down.”

“Don’t say that word,” Jack sighs. “The D word. Not until we’re back on the ground and safely away and you’ve bought me the pint you obviously owe me for luring me onto this thing.”

“The Eye’s what, twelve years old? I’m pretty sure by now they’ve got all the screws tightened properly.”

“Yes, pointing out that we’re on a giant revolving piece of metal that’s also rickety and old helps quite a lot, thanks Gene.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Eugene shake his head with a smile.

They must be nearly to the top when Jack’s staring competition with the benches set in the centre of the capsule is interrupted by Eugene sliding in front of him. His hands find the railing on either side of Jack’s body, and it’s suddenly very warm and very difficult to breathe.

“Just look for a second,” Eugene says, and nudges at Jack’s arm with one of his own. “I promise to catch you if the sides fall off.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Jack says, trying for stern. And then Eugene shoves at his shoulder again and he’s turning without meaning to and —

The day is grey and flat and overcast, the river like a ribbon of steel running below them. It’s not a pretty view, exactly, but it’s weird and surreal and a little breathtaking. He feels dizzy, and he’s not sure if it’s the height or the bare inch of space between his back and Eugene’s chest.

“Not so bad, right?” Eugene says, practically into his ear.

Jack stares at the Westminster bridge until his eyes start to water and tries to think of something boring. Traffic patterns, former prime ministers, single fare rates for the underground. Anything.

So it could be desperation or it could be vertigo that makes him ask, “Are you going to tell me what happened? To your leg and all?”

Eugene’s quiet for a long moment. “Car accident when I was six. I was on my bike and there was a drunk driver, I guess. I don’t really remember it.”

“Thought it seemed like you were pretty steady,” Jack says, then feels like an idiot. “On the leg, I mean. Guess you would be, after 13 years.”

“You know what they say about practice,” Eugene says with a shrug that pulls his arms tighter against Jack’s sides for not nearly long enough.

“Do I?”

“Dork,” Eugene shifts behind him, pulling back, and Jack feels the loss somewhere deep in his chest. “You going to be okay now?”

“Yeah,” he lies, and keeps staring at the Thames.

—

By the third day, Jack’s pretty sure he’s got it sorted.

Wake up, resist the urge to kiss Eugene.

Go to work for a few hours, grudgingly, while Eugene does some sort of touristy thing and buys what appears to Jack to be an unnecessary number of postcards. Meet up at some pub in whatever part of the city Eugene’s gotten himself mildly lost in this time.

Continue resisting the urge to kiss him.

Drink and talk and wander around the darkening city until the streetlights are on and it’s too late to do anything but fall asleep while still not kissing him.

If there were awards given out for not kissing people, Jack would win all of them.

And then, of course, Simon shows up.

“Holden, you’ve been hiding the internet boy.” He crosses his arms and leans his hip on the edge of the shop counter, blocking the line of four people Jack is supposed to be ringing through his till.

“Look, if you’re not going to buy anything,” he starts.

Simon reaches blindly to his left, where there’s a rack of top charting albums, and grabs one. “How’s this?”

“You think you’re going to have a sudden need to listen to angsty pop-country breakup songs sung by teenage girls, then?” Jack says, pulling the Taylor Swift CD out of his hand and scanning it. “That’s ten quid.”

“In a second,” he pats at his pockets as though he doesn’t know exactly where his wallet is, and Jack rolls his eyes. “Now, your e-boyfriend. When do we meet him? Jody’s curious.”

“Right, this is all about Jody,” the rest of the lineup’s looking more than a little restless, and Jack flashes them his crazy-customers-what-you-gonna-do-ha-ha smile. It doesn’t seem to take. “You want to meet him, you have to promise me you’re going to behave. He’s nice.”

“Who’s going to misbehave?” Simon holds out his debit card, then jerks his hand back at the last second. “I think we should all go down to Brighton tonight. Do a spot of clubbing.”

“When do you not think that?” Jack leans across the counter and grabs him by the wrist, trying to wrestle the card away. It is a daily miracle he doesn’t get fired. “Like you’re going to get Jody and Sam to agree to that on a school night.”

“Jody and Sam already said yes,” he lets go of the thing finally, and shoves Jack back. “We’ll swing by yours to pick you up at 10, then head for the train, cool?”

“Do I even get a say?” he asks, tossing Simon’s CD none-too-gently into a bag and shoving the chip and pin machine across the counter so he can punch in his code.

“Nope,” he grins, and gives Jack a wink before pushing off the counter. “See you at 10. Tell the boy to wear something nice.”

—

Eugene, of course, thinks it’s a brilliant plan. Possibly because he’s still labouring under the delusion that Jack’s friends are good, decent people instead of conniving and weirdly obsessed with shitty student bars in southern beach towns.

“It’s not even a good club,” Jack grumbles for like the fifth time, burrowing himself further into his computer chair and toying with the stings on his hoodie. “Simon just likes it because one of the guys who bar tends fancies him and gives him free drinks all the time.”

“I though Simon was straight?” Eugene frowns into the mirror propped up against the wall near the closet (a gift from Jack’s mum that hasn’t hardly ever seen this kind of attention before now).

“Straight unless it’s convenient,” Jack amends. “Stop frowning, you’re fine.”

Fine being, of course, an outrageous understatement. Eugene’s trousers are just the right sort of tight to make his ass look fantastic, but not so close as to make it impossible to wrestle him out of them later, and Jack really wishes he could stop thinking things like that.

“You sure?” Eugene shakes his head and smooths at the front of his shirt with restless hands. “I know it’s stupid but I’m sort of nervous.”

“These are my friends we’re talking about,” Jack says. “So you know up front they’ve got bad taste. Stop fidgeting. You look insanely hot, okay?”

That was not how that was supposed to come out. He’d meant to say 'fine’ or 'nice’ or, or something benign. Something less truthful.

Eugene’s head snaps up and Jack snatches at his phone and pretends to be very involved in checking for new texts. There aren’t any.

“Jack,” it’s said very softly, a little hesitant, and when he looks up Eugene is watching him with an expression that looks almost — he must be misreading this, has to be, must be projecting something into this because there’s no way—

The bang on the front door just then is such a relief.

“I’ll get that,” Jack says, and practically falls out of his chair.

—

They may be awful people, but Jack’s friends are great for breaking the tension. Jody practically tackles Eugene the second she’s through the bedroom door, spinning him around and nearly knocking him over even though he must have almost a foot of height on her.

Simon, for his part, grabs him by the shoulders and holds him at arm’s length for several seconds of critical examination that make Eugene’s eyes get all big and confused. “You’ll do,” he says eventually, pulling away with a nod.

After that, Sam’s jerky wave and “hey” from the doorway seem downright polite. At least one of his friends isn’t completely mental.

They don’t talk on the way to the station. At least, he and Eugene don’t. And it must be obvious something’s up because after maybe a minute of awkward, silent walking Jody tucks her arm through Eugene’s and starting firing questions at him a mile a minute, too fast for Jack to follow.

“Hit a rough patch in the marriage?” Simon asks, not nearly as quietly as he could.

“Shut it,” Jack mutters, and glares at the sidewalk.

“He seems really normal,” Sam says, wilting when Jack turns his glare on him instead. “I mean, for someone you like and — yeah, I’m gonna shut up now.”

“Our little Sammy’s right, though,” Simon says. “You ought to lock that shit down while you can. Maybe literally. You thought about keeping him in your closet until he’s missed his flight?”

“I hate you both,” he glances up ahead, and Eugene’s waving his free hand in the air as he talks to Jody, trying to illustrate some point about something or other. The two of them are snugged up close together and Jack feels a bit sick at the sight and can’t help it. “You can’t say anything, either of you. Got it? I swear I’ll hack your D and D accounts and sell off your best swords if you do.”

“Sure you will,” Simon says with an eye roll.

“Sam’s password is 'wendigo,’” Jack says. “Yours is your mum’s cat’s name followed by 1234.”

“Mr. Sprinkles is a dachshund, I’ll have you know.”

“All your swords and amours and the good scrolls,” he hisses. “Sold for below auction house value. Don’t think I won’t, Lauchlan.”

“Chill out guys, okay?” Sam says, trying to work himself between them on the sidewalk, before the conversation can actually come to blows (or ineffective shoves, more like). “I finally found the 'voice in the dark’ scroll last week and I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. You’re not allowed to mess with that.”

“What’s that one do?” Jack asks, happy to let the subject of certain Canadians drop.

“Dunno for certain. No one in the forums seems to have all that many answers, but the item description says it’s guaranteed to make whoever you use it on weep.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened in that game,” Jack sighs, thinking about evil trees and armoured bears and shambling ones and also feeling a weird, painful pang of nostalgia for Eugene’s laugh in his ear and those early months when things weren’t quite so complicated. Maybe he should’ve called a few more of the Christmas party guys back after all.

“God, would you stop moping and just bloody kiss him already?” Simon says, apparently less willing to move on to other subjects than the rest of them. “Get it out of your system already. You look like someone’s killed your mum.”

“If you want someone to kiss him so bad why don’t you do it?” he suggests, then tries to kick at Simon when he pretends to consider it, but mostly just ends up getting Sam in the ankle. The yelp he makes is enough to get Eugene and Jody both frowning back at them.

“Tripped on a… sidewalk,” Sam offers, in the least believable cover Jack has ever head.

Yeah, this night is going to be fantastic. He can tell already.

—

The club is stuffy and humid with too many bodies and too much noise by the time they get there, much to Jack’s delight. If they’re going to do this, best do it in a room where it’s too loud to talk. Not that he has to worry that much. Simon sticks with them for all of three seconds before peeling off to go flirt with some guy with a fauxhawk and a lip piercing in exchange for glowing blue concoctions that don’t look at all appealing.

“Drinks?” Sam suggests, and the guy is really having a night for great ideas, Jack has to say.

They wind up sitting around a tiny, low table on the second floor, a little ways off from the dance area and thankfully out of sight of Simon and his bartending friend. By some sort of unwritten agreement, everyone shows up armed with two drinks an no one’s first lasts more than a couple of quick gulps.

Jack’s nearing the end of his second pint and finally starting to feel some of the tension knotted between his shoulders fade away when Jody cocks her head to the side, then turns a wide, pleading smile on him and Sam.

“Guys, I love this song.”

“You do?” Sam gives her a blank, puzzled look. “Since when do you like Katy Perry? I thought you said on chat the other night that she reminded you of—”

And the corner of the table is a bit in the way, but Jack’s pretty sure he sees one small, ballet-flatted foot shoot out and connect with the side of Sam’s knee. God, he’s got to remember never to cross this girl. It’s always the tiny, perky ones you’ve got to watch out for in the end.

“Reminds you of all sorts of nice things,” Sam finishes, wincing and clutching at his leg. “Dancing it is.”

“Brilliant,” Jody leaps out of her seat, grabs Sam by the arm, and practically throws him onto the dance floor before rounding on Jack and Eugene. “C'mon you two. Up, up.”

“Did someone put something in your drink?” Jack blurts, because self preservation’s never been his strong suit. But Eugene chooses the same moment to say “I don’t dance,” and their words all get jumbled together.

“Everybody dances,” Jody says, with only a quick warning glance at Jack, just enough to let him know that some day when he least expects it he’s going to wind up with a knitting needle through the eye or something. “Jack will teach you.”

“I will?” The warning glare lingers a bit this time, and he pastes on a bright, fake smile. “Yeah, course I will.”

“That’s settled, then,” she holds out a hand and Eugene takes it, looking more like he’s being led off to slaughter than to shake it to top forty hits. Jack follows along a few paces back, trying to weave himself into the crush of bodies on the dance floor without knocking anyone with an elbow or accidentally brushing himself up against Eugene’s back. He may not be good at self preservation, but he’s not entirely without sense.

They end up dancing in a packed-together square near the centre of the floor. Well, dancing might be a bit of a strong term to describe it. Jody’s alright, but Sam’s got the worst case of straight-boy dance moves Jack’s seen in ages — arms stuck to his sides and feet shuffling along to the beat. And Eugene, he’s barely moving at all, save for an awkward, out of rhythm bop of the shoulders every so often.

“You weren’t kidding about not dancing, were you?” Jack shouts, trying to be heard over the music.

Eugene ducks his head and shrugs, but it looks like he’s laughing too. “I told you.”

“This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jack calls back.

“Bite me.”

“D'you think it would help your dancing?”

Eugene reaches out like he’s going to take a swipe at him, and it’s right about then that one of the girls dancing just behind them takes a too-big step back and rams her shoulder straight into his back.

Eugene makes what can only be described as an affronted cat noise and trips forward, flailing hands locking around Jack’s arms. And Jack should step back and give him some room to catch himself, but there’s no space behind him either and nothing to do but freeze in place and try to hold steady and keep breathing and not think about how they’re nose to nose and so close and—

“Jack?” Eugene says it in his normal speaking voice, but it seems so loud in spite of the music. He’s looking at him all funny again, and Jack feels his thumbs stroking along the skin at his elbows, sees a little pink flicker of tongue as he wets his lips.

“Jack,” Eugene says again, and it comes out all strained and a little pleading and definitely on edge. “Help me out here?”

In the back of his head, just before their lips touch, Jack imagines himself flinging all those no-kissing awards he’s racked up over the past few days off the top of the London Eye. Worth it. Utterly and completely worth it, and it’s not like he had any shelves to put them on anyway.

He pulls back to get his breath or his bearings or, or something, and Eugene grins and says, “I meant dance lessons, but that works too.”

And… shit. Jack is an idiot. A colossal idiot. Maybe they make awards for that. Most spectacular misread of a situation. The golden screwup. Her Majesty’s pear-shaped cross for utter fuckery. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” he starts, and he should definitely get back now, put some space between them, run as far away as possible, even. But Eugene’s still got him by the arms and there’s people everywhere and no escape route in sight. “So, so, so sorry. You have to believe me, I—”

Eugene kisses him.

Jack’s phone goes off in his pocket.

—

_Get it Jack! <3 Jody & Sam_

—

“I don’t understand,” Jack says. He’s been meaning to say it since Eugene pulled him down the stairs and out of the club, looking for somewhere less crowded to talk. Except since then there’s been more kissing, and his phone keeps buzzing in his pocket reminding him he’s got an unread text, and Eugene is clever with his tongue in ways Jack assumes and hopes don’t have anything to do with journalism school and — well, he’s gotten a bit distracted is the thing.

“What don’t you understand?” Eugene’s voice is rough around the edges and his lips are swollen and Jack means to answer him, he really does, just as soon as he’s kissed him one more time. And then once more for good measure.

“It’s just — all this,” he flaps a hand between them, fingertips bumping off Eugene’s chest. “Since when?”

“Use your words, Jack,” Eugene says, and pats him on the shoulder. “Since when what?”

“Since when do you  _like me_?” God, but the guy is thick sometimes. As though there’s any other question here. Could Jack have been making out with him for three days already? Has he been cockblocking himself the whole time? It’s enough to drive a person to madness. “Is it just the beer talking? Because if you’re just a cheap drunk that’s fine, no problem. A lot of my best friends are cheap drunks. But if it’s going to get awkward tomorrow—”

Eugene kisses him again. Jack’s not sure how he feels about being snogged every time someone wants him to be quiet, but — no, wait, actually. Totally in favour. Quite alright, even, if Eugene’s the one doing the shutting up.

When they pull apart again Eugene knocks their foreheads together not quite as gently as Jack suspects he means to and says, “for months now, dummy.”

It takes him a second to put that together, and a little longer to pick his jaw up off the ground. “You’re joking.”

“Yeah, because that makes sense,” he’s winding one of the strings of Jack’s hoodie in between his fingers, pulling the cord all out of alignment. It’s weirdly intimate somehow, in a way that his other hand on Jack’s hip isn’t. “I — I was worried it was too obvious. All of your friends seem to know.”

“All of my friends know that I’ve been gone on you for ages,” Jack corrects, and feels his face heat up with the admission, as though the kissing hadn’t been proof enough already. It’s a bit cold outside, and he sneaks his hands up the back of Eugene’s shirt, where his skin’s warm, and he lets out this soft, contented sigh and nuzzles at Jack’s face.

“We should get away from the door,” he murmurs, and for the first time it occurs to Jack that they’ve been making out right in the path of anyone wanting to get in or out of the club. Probably a bit rude, that.

But he can’t quite stand the thought of going back inside yet, and it’s cold but not freezing, and they’re only a few blocks up from — oh. Oh that is a very good idea indeed. “You want to take a walk?”

Eugene raises his eyebrows at him a bit, but fits his hand in Jack’s and lets himself be led down the block and around the corner, towards the smell of salt and the soft crash of waves coming in. Or maybe rolling out. Jack doesn’t know much of anything about tides.

“Oh wow,” Eugene squeezes his fingers, coming to a stop on the walkway above the beach. The water’s pitch black and shiny this time of night, blending into sky. “I forgot we’d be close to the ocean.”

“C'mon,” there’s a flight of stairs nearby, and Jack leads them down onto the beach proper, their shoes crunching over pebbles when they get to the bottom. It’s cold down here too, and he tugs Eugene down to sit on the bottom stair and presses against his side, trying to share body heat. “Little more private this way, right?”

He can’t entirely see Eugene’s expression just now, but it seems like he’s smiling. “What about your friends?”

“Oh, right,” he pulls his phone out of his pocket, and finally gets round to checking his texts.

_Sam and I are going to get pizza while you’re busy. :) Meet you at the station for the 3:50 train? —J._

Simon is more direct:  _if u two are having sex right now remember that public indecency is a criminal offence._

 **IT IS TOO COLD FOR THAT :(** , Jack texts back.

“We could probably work on that,” Eugene says, and Jack hadn’t realized he’d been reading over his shoulder. “Warming up. Not the, uh, the other thing — I’m not doing it on pebbles.”

“Got a warming idea in mind, then?” Jack asks, grinning, and doesn’t wait for a reply before leaning in to lick at Eugene’s mouth.

—

This time round, Jack falls asleep on Eugene on the train ride home.

When he wakes up it’s to an arm around his shoulders, a couple of told-you-so looks from his friends, and a grainy snapshot of him and Eugene cuddled together texted to his phone. And maybe he’s going to have to revise his impression of his D and D guild. They may only be kind of terrible. Fifty per cent bastards.

Well, the number works for Jody and Sam anyway. Simon would probably be insulted if Jack started thinking he was anything less than a total asshole.

They lean on each other most of the way back to his place, weaving across the sidewalk, too tired for straight lines. By the time they make it back to the flat and into Jack’s bedroom he’s sure the only thing still holding them up is some trick of physics. Somehow they’ve managed to balance it just right to keep from tipping over, even though neither of them is holding his own weight.

“Sleep now, everything else later?” he suggests, and Eugene nods and leans into him even harder than before. They hit the mattress in a tangle of limbs, and Jack may still have his trousers and belt and shoes on, but he could happily stay like this the rest of the night. He winds his arms round Eugene’s back, buries his face in his chest and ignores the mutter of protest he hears.

He feels a shove at his shoulder, but not hard enough to roll him off or so much as loosen his hold on him.

“You’re lucky I like you,” Eugene mutters, and drops a kiss to the side of Jack’s neck.

And yeah, Jack thinks. He really is.

—

Four days later, he wakes up in the middle of the night to something trying to crush the bones out of his hand.

When he works his eyes open Eugene’s curled on his side and staring at him, hands clenched around one of Jack’s, mouth drawn into a thin, unhappy line.

“What?” he croaks out. And he wants to take his hand back before Eugene actually pulverizes any of his fingers, but even through a fog of sleep he can tell that would be a spectacularly bad idea just now.

Eugene sucks in a thick, wet breath and when he speaks his voice wavers a bit at the end. “We’ve got nine hours left.”

It hits like Jack’s always imagined a blow from one of those armoured bears would. Right in the chest to start, then radiating out in waves. He’s been trying not to think about this pretty much since that first kiss in the club. About return flights, and airport check in times, and just how goddamned far away Canada is, even on a little Google map on a computer screen. He must have lost track of time in there somewhere, because as much as he’s known Eugene was only coming for the week he’d thought they’d had a few days yet. Just a bit more time.

He can’t force words out, and can’t think of anything to say anyway. So he shuffles forward as best he can with one hand trapped, until their chests bump. The kiss he leans in for is meant to be gentle, but Eugene presses into it all open mouthed and desperate and finally relinquishes his death grip on Jack’s hand to grab him in a tight hug instead.

It’s a little funny. Up until now Jack hasn’t quite been able to wrap his head around all of this. They’ve kissed and — and more than kissed besides, but nothing’s ever quite sunk in. Except now, with Eugene clutching at him and pressing him down into the mattress, it’s starting to hit.

Eugene might really like him. Like,  _really_  like him.

And Jack has no idea what he’s going to do when he leaves.

They’ve not talked about it at all, these last few days. Nothing’s defined. Eugene’s going to get on a plane and go home and — and what?

Hell, he doesn’t even know what this is between them, if it was anything more than the two of them trying to get some weird, mutual crush out of their systems. A brief romantic detour in the otherwise smooth and steady course of their platonic internet friendship. Maybe Eugene gets on a plane and things go back to the way they were a few weeks back. Late night chats and monster killing sessions and Jack trying to pretend he doesn’t know how Eugene’s mouth tastes or what his hair feels like between his fingers.

The thought makes his stomach hurt, but what’s the alternative?

They live in different countries, on opposites sides a giant damn ocean. It’s not going to work. At no point was it ever going to work.

Fuck, he really wants it to work.

“Hey,” Eugene says, quiet, petting at Jack’s hair. “Hey, ssh, it’s okay. It’s fine.”

Oh. He really hadn’t meant to start crying.

“Sorry, sorry,” he snuffles and tries to wipe the worst of the wet off onto the shoulder of his t-shirt. “Guess it wouldn’t be all that surprising if I told you I really don’t want you to leave?”

There’s a bit of a pause, and when Eugene speaks it sounds like there’s something stuck in his throat. “Yeah, me either.”

—

**MARCH**

The Abel Township server goes down at 3 a.m. UK time, and Jack’s almost grateful when it does.

By then he and Eugene have spent the last half hour fleeing a mass of shambling ones all packed into battle formation and carrying ranged weapons that Jack’s pretty sure no one under level 80 is even supposed to be able to equip — and even then, not without massive point dumps into intelligence and dexterity. They’ve mostly been staying ahead of the pack, but by the time the game starts skipping, freezing and then locks up altogether they’ve resorted to dropping every non-vital supply in their combined inventories in hopes of distracting the things. If they’ve somehow managed to lose the last 30 minutes of game play in the crash, he’s definitely not going to complain.

His phone goes off as he’s trying to ctrl+alt+delete himself out of the game for good.

_Skype?_

**Give me 5 secs**

When the call connects, he can see Eugene’s sitting on his bed, obscured from the middle down by the angle of the computer. “Hey.”

“You know, if the walking dead are going to get themselves organized, I might need to find a new game,” Jack says with a sigh, leaning forward to rest an elbow on the desk and prop his chin on his hand. “It’s not even realistic. Braindead zombies should not have this kind of AI.”

“Maybe there’ll be a patch in the morning,” Eugene suggests with a shrug. “It’s got to be a glitch. Who’s going to believe a shambler with — what was that thing? Some kind of medieval rocket launcher?”

“Don’t even get me started on that,” Jack says with an eye roll. “Some people have no respect for historical accuracy in fantasy settings.”

Eugene shakes his head and laughs, and Jack feels what’s rapidly becoming an all-too-familiar pang in his chest. And it’s stupid, but he can’t quite stop himself from reaching out to trace the line of Eugene’s cheek on the monitor in front of him. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” And usually that’s enough to kill the conversation dead for a moment or two, while they both look anywhere but there respective screens and Jack works at getting the lump in his throat back down to a manageable size, but tonight Eugene barrels on ahead. “I — so — I was thinking. About that…”

He trails off, and glances away, and Jack can see his fingers tapping restlessly at the edge of the keyboard. Shit, is this it? It doesn’t feel like a breakup, but Jack would be the first person to admit he’s not much good at identifying those conversations before they happen.

“Go on,” he says, finally, just to keep this moving. Better to rip the bandage off quickly, or something like that.

“There’s an international exchange program at my school,” it comes out in that same, rushed tone that Jack remembers from their initial February break conversation, and he wonders if Eugene pitches all his ideas at lightening speed. “It wouldn’t start until September but, I already told my parents I wasn’t coming home for the summer and — they probably have journalism internships in England, right?”

There’s something else funny going on in Jack’s chest just now. Another odd feeling, but not quite like before, and he can’t seem to place it. “They probably do, at that,” he says, and watches as Eugene’s smile spreads slow across his face.

Oh, that’s what it is, then.

Hope.


End file.
